A Story

To be honest, I've begun this post entry at least four times, only to stop because I couldn't understand what I was trying to write. I decided at last that what I wanted to say was best said in a story. This is a story that has definite Christian undertones but, unfortunately, does not work out to a neat little conclusion. It does, perhaps, resolve itself, but it leaves many questions unanswered. These I leave the reader to ponder because I have not yet found the answers myself. I believe in Truth. Sometimes, I don't know where to find it.

Once there was a boy named Marco, who greatly desired to find the truth. He was rich and well provided for, so he decided to dedicate his entire life to finding the elusive truth. He set out one day, when the birds were singing and the grass was green and he was young and spry, to find Truth.
“For,” he said, “Truth is something firm and unchanging and real, and surely if I search hard enough I shall find it.”
But though he wandered long and asked many a soul both young and old, he had no luck finding Truth. Long and hard he searched, under mountains and in canyons and through cities and by still ponds where old sages murmured midst the reeds. At last he burst out,
“I must be systematic about this! I must stop chasing the wind and start systematically.”
So he went to those great systematizers, the scientists, who peered at meniscus lines and pulled the legs off walking stick bugs and hurled protons at lead shields for the sheer fun of the boom and the bang. And he asked them,
“How can I find the Truth?”
And they, greatly annoyed with being distracted from Great Endeavors and Long Research, squinted at him from amidst the flasks and centrifuges and pocket-protectors and spat with disgust.
“Only trust a Truth that has a number attached to it,” squawked one. “Doesn’t matter if it is a number you like or understand or is relevant, but make sure there’s a number attached.”
“Experiments! Only trust experiments! Devise them, execute them, replicate them! Experiments!” said another.
“If Truth was a number, it would have been discovered long ago and you wouldn’t be fussing with your glassware and your solutions to find it,” Marco said. “And if it was the result of an experiment, does it change when one experiment contradicts another.”
There was a great deal of hem-hawing and awkward stuttering and a good deal of gaffe about calibration and testing theories, but in the end Marco left the laboratories in frustration.
“Apparently systems don’t work either,” he said. “Perhaps I shall try reasoning, pure reason, amongst the philosophers.”
He went to a the Leading Academy and Conference of Philosophers, where all the great and wise and learned philosophers sat in a circle and argued with each other, pausing only for July 4th and their yearly day of sleep. When he entered, he called out in a loud voice,
“What is Truth?”
Immediately, one philosopher leaped up and shouted,
“It’s an abstract form, of which all reality is a copy!”
Another leapt and shouted back,
“It is only a name we give to things that bear a resemblance to one another!”
Very soon, Marco had the viewing pleasure of 451 philosophers arguing for 453 different view of truth.
“It doesn’t exist!”
“It exists in every one of us!”
“It is subjective!”
“It is objective!”
“It is self-explanatory!”
“It is a byproduct of our neurons!”
“It’s a cat!”
Needless to say, with all the confusion and hubbub Marco had no understanding of what Truth might actually be, for every argument seemed as good as another. When the chair legs started flying and Democrites was spitting stones at Zeno and Descartes was trying to show how Aristotle’s head could be graphed next to a cat, Marco decided he could learn nothing from the Leading Academy and Conference of Philosophers and he left in disgust.
“I was better off looking for myself,” he muttered. “But there are still other people who claim to find Truth. I will ask the great sages and religious scholars to tell me what Truth is.”
He couldn’t find the religious sages and scholars all gathered in one place. Rather, each one had his own pond that he sat by and his twelve to fifteen disciples who firmly believed that The Sage knew Truth and no one else did.
“Truth is the air; it comes and goes with the breath of God.” Said one.
“Truth is what I say God said it is,” snapped another sage.
“Truth is that if you place fifteen gold pieces in here, God will give you thirty back,” replied another very suavely, gesturing to his dirty hat. Martin threw two gold pieces in and left with a bow.
“I fear the sages and scholars are frauds,” Marco said. “Their religion only make them bolder than the philosophers and scientists.”
He looked out at the world for the first time since he had started his great journey. The grass was no longer green, in fact, it had faded out altogether and he was standing in the middle of the dry desert. And he was no longer young and spry, but older and creaky in the left knee and bald. He looked out at the mournful wilderness, and lo! He saw rushing towards him a crowd of people.
“Good people, where are you going?” he asked wearily.
“We are going to see the crazy man of the desert,” they said. “He claims to have seen the Truth.”
“Pah,” Marco spat. “And then another crazy man will say that no, only he’s seen the Truth and before we know it the Truth will be a cactus and we will all be cactus buds.”
But he went along anyway because he supposed that since he had squandered his life already with uselessness he might as well do it more now. Very soon he saw the crazy man, who looked, well, crazy. His hair was thrown all around and his tunic was dirty and his teeth were black and his nails were long and his arms and legs were hairy and he had a crazed, awe-struck expression on his face.
“Tell us the Truth, crazy man!” the crowd mocked.
“The Truth is God and God is the Truth,” the crazy man said in a quiet, husky voice. “I have seen Him and I have seen Truth and I have seen that they are the same.”
“You are crazy, crazy man!” the crowd scoffed. “How can Truth be God? How can God be Truth? Show us God and we will believe you!”
“You cannot see God.” The crazy man said. “You are all sane.”
“Then we will stone you, so no one can see God,” they said. And they grabbed the stones nearby and they stoned him to death.
But in his last convulses, as he sunk to his knees in the middle of the desert under the rain of stones, the crazy man said in a weak, dying voice,
“I have seen the Truth and the Truth has set me free.” And then he died.
Marco was much moved by this sight, for though he did not stone the crazy man still he was as angry as the crowd that he could not see the Truth. It seemed unfair, inhuman, a cosmic injustice that only the crazy man in the dirty tunic could see the Truth.
“I want to see the Truth!” he cried out, loud and strong. This he did for many days, as the crowd muttered that “here is another of these crazy fools.”
Finally, one day, as he was crying out about Truth and the crowd stood scoffing by, he looked up into the sky. At first, all he saw were clouds, but then, like a tiny speck of light in a dark sky, he saw something. It grew larger and brighter, like a comet spreading across the night sky over many days, until finally he realized that he was looking at Pure, Unadulterated Truth.
“I have seen it!” he said. “I have seen the Truth!”
And with that he keeled over on the hard ground and writhed across the sand. Whether in bliss or agony, in wretched paradise or heavenly torture, none of the astonished crowd could tell, but in the dirt he rolled and writhed like one poked with hot brands. At last, his body stopped quaking and he looked up at the crowd and croaked,
“I see white horses.”
With that, he died.

Vacation

Very quickly, been on vacation and had a crazy, busy summer. Unfortunately, it hasn't slowed down so bye for now!
(I am entering this in a "the Rudest Blog Post Contest.")